I'm a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe I am. I have written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. I've also ghosted pieces for several UK politicians in many of the UK papers, including the Daily Sport.

Fracking Does Contaminate Groundwater: Carry on Drilling Regardless

The EPA’s report on groundwater contamination by fracking (or frakking to taste) for natural gas says that the process does indeed contaminate ground water. So now we’ve got to decide should be the reaction to that: my contribution to the debate is that we should carry on drilling regardless.

ProPublica’s report on the EPA’s paper is here, the EPA’s paper itself is here and a very good indeed technical precis is here at Ars Technica.

Stripped right to its roots the report states that deep groundwater has been contaminated as a result of frakking. Both from the frakking chemicals themselves and also with methane that has, as a result of the frakking, seeped into the water.

Similarly, well water (taken from much shallower depths) has been contaminated, not directly (as far as anyone knows) as a result of frakking but as a result of the waste pits from previous oil and gas drilling activities in the area.

Finally the report notes that the shale being drilled is in a much shallower formation than exists in other areas and that there isn’t, again as there is in most/many other areas, an impermeable barrier between the shale beds and higher rock formations.

That’s a reasonable and non-biased summary there. Now for a little bit of bias: how you interpret these results.

I interpret then as saying that there are specifics about this particular shale, the shallowness and the lack of a barrier layer, which make this contamination happen. I agree that it’s possible to assume that the same contamination will happen everywhere: I don’t agree, but I do agree that it’s a possibly logical position to hold.

Now of course we’ve got to decide what to actually do.

As I’ve said above, my contribution to the debate is that we should carry on drilling: although perhaps not regardless. With a proper attention to the costs and benefits. What I would not say is that this provides a sufficient argument to ban frakking at all, even though that’s what Josh Fox (of Gasland fame) says should happen:

Beyond the US, Europe, South Africa, China and Australia are right now contemplating embarking on the “shale gas revolution”; they should take note of the EPA’s findings. As the story unfolds, the real answer bubbles inexorably to the surface: fracking is deeply flawed; it is inherently contaminating in its present form and must be halted immediately. The empty excuses of the gas industry and the pro-fracking politicians who defend them just don’t hold water.

For the following logic does not work: something bad happens when frakking is done therefore we must halt frakking. The reason this logic does not work is that whenever anything is done something bad happens: and there’s not much point in our all being around if we’re therefore to ban absolutely everything.

In the specific case of frakking, OK, so there’s groundwater contamination as a result of it (assume that it’s not something limited to Wyoming if you wish). There are also good things that happen as a result of frakking. People get cheap energy as the most obvious result. This stops people freezing in winter, boiling in summer, allows them to cook their food and, something that is generally not appreciated, natural gas is the major input into fertilizer production (along with air) and that’s what allows us to grow all the food that we then want to cook. No, you cannot then state that we should all be doing the organic farming thing and we won’t need the gas: there aren’t enough animals providing enough ordure to produce the organic fertiliser that would be needed.

So, if we don’t frakk then energy becomes more expensive: this will make life worse for many and will, in a statistical sense at least, kill some number of people. Which would be bad.

It’s also true that if we don’t frakk, if we limit the drilling for natural gas, then more coal will be used to provide us with those same energy requirements. That’s worse for the climate as well as being more expensive: so that would also be bad.

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I wonder if your opinion will change in 30 years. At the rate we’re going, that will be about how long it will take before most groundwater in areas being fracked will be contaminated. You’re correct that most wellwater contamination is caused by poor handling of chemicals on the surface. This is just getting started, it will get much, much worse.

I would recommend starting work on desalination plants and water pipelines, too. We’re gonna need it.

The sad fact is, we most certainly will frack our way to massive pollution. Even the environmentalists ringing alarm bells about the ecological damage still demand the energy that comes from the practice. The insidious part is, unlike workplace accidents involving solar installations that kill one person quickly, the pollution will degrade thousands of people’s lives, and kill them very slowly and probably far more painfully, and expensively for society as a whole.

It seems a fact of human stupidity that we’d all rather gamble on a slow poison, that suffer immediate deprivation. Maybe you don’t care, maybe it won’t affect you. But if you’ve got children, they may be faced with the ultimate realization that your short term greed and justifications have basically ruined their lives.

Enjoy your cheap energy while it lasts. It’s the exact same issue as mounting government debt, except the ultimate price is being poisoned instead of suffering penury.

I wonder if your opinion will change in 30 years, or will you be dead by then? At the rate we’re going, that’s about how long it will take for the vast majority of groundwater in fracking areas to be hopelessly contaminated. Do you have children? Will they be dying a painful death from the slow poisoning?

You are correct that most wellwater (and air and soil) contamination is caused by poor handling of chemicals on the surface. This is just getting started, regulations are already poor, and many are trying to further gut what few regulations do exist. It will get much, much worse. You should at least advocate starting work on desalination plants and water pipelines. We’re gonna need it.

The sad part is, your opinion doesn’t really matter. We’ll frack the living daylights out of our planet regardless, because everyone demands the energy. Even the environmentalists who are ringing alarm bells are still demanding the energy.

It seems an inevitable fact of human stupidity that we’d much rather gamble on the effects of slow poisoning, than suffer immediate deprivation. The insidious part is that while workplace accidents in solar installations kill one or two people quickly, the contamination from fracking will degrade tens of thousands of people’s lives slowly. In the long run, there will be many more more slow, far more painful, and far more expensive to society deaths from fracking than there will be from solar installations. And if you think workers haven’t been killed or injured working in fracking fields, you’re not looking closely. It’s a dangerous job.

Someday, it’s likely that your (if you have them) children will be faced with the realization that your short term greed and justifications were a primary factor in providing them with short, miserable lives.

Wow is this really your best most intelligent argument. I am not a greenie but Solar is not known as a great killer. Really 3 People ? By comparison what are the numbers of people that will be affected by contaminated ground water. I must assume it would thousands and for generations. If I am wrong please give me the facts. Worse how long is the water fouled for ? Is this a 100 year problem – then we have bigger issues to weigh then you present. Yes I want cheap gas but the multiple false dilemmas you present between fracking and freezing are pathetic. I am sure I could make a case for fracking but you have almost put me off it. By making such a horribly weak argument I wonder if this is the best case that can be made for fracking – God help us if it is.

Do you have any idea what Wyoming and Montana badlands are like? We have an area comparable to Texas with about 100,000 people living very far apart. My sister’s closest neighbor is 20 miles away and she can see at least 3 rigs out her front window. Yes all of our water has changed since all of this new “boom” has begun, but I can remember hearing stories (and seeing it myself) about turning on the faucet in the kitchen and lighting a match and the water would start on fire because we drilled our well to far down. My family did that themselves, no frack tank required. All of the water in this area is bad it’s rusty artesien and has many chemicals already found in the ground. When the state decided peope shoul have an option to have better water they put treatment plants in the towns and helped pay the cost of drilling a new well. So no more gas in the water. Now, at my sisters house her water has changed within this last year, its become more salty because of the salt water pumped underground to fill the space the oil was in I assume. I am not exactly sure why salt water is pumped in but the point is they coudn’t drink the water before anyway, so life continues as normal.

In response to the mineral rights, they are most of the time not owned by the current land owner but by whoever owned the land when the mineral rights were issued. Most of the time those rights have been divided up between so many family members that don’t live anywhere near where the frakking or well will be and they just see $$$ and don’t think about the land. The drilling co. does have to pay the land owner to use the land and pay for damages to the land but I am unsure if that includes water. So the owner is compensated in some way.

Since I am a lifelong resident of this area I can reasonably say that the only place in MT or WY that has ever had good drinking water is in the mountains from the snow melt and I don’t think frakking would effect that.

——” By comparison what are the numbers of people that will be affected by contaminated ground water. I must assume it would thousands and for generations. If I am wrong please give me the facts. Worse how long is the water fouled for ? Is this a 100 year problem – then we have bigger issues to weigh then you present.”——–

The Colorado Plateau occupies approximately one million square miles in the western and southwestern US. The entire watershed system drains into one single river—the Colorado River, one of the great river systems of the world. Any water contamination on the entire Colorado Plateau will eventually drain into the Colorado River. The entire Colorado Plateau is mostly semi arid high plains or desert. The main source of water being melting snowpacks in high mountain elevations. This water source has been drying up due to climate change over the last 30 years—–and all agriculture and human consumption is in jeopardy due to increase demand and decreasing supply.

The situation has become so critical that the Colorado River—the same river that carved the Grand Canyon out of solid rock with its flow no longer even reaches the Sea of Cortes. It’s flow is completely used up. Millions of people depend on the Colorado for their only source of water. Contaminate the Colorado River watershed and you affect millions people. You can get along without TVs, game boxes and cell phones in the desert a WHOLE lot better than you can get along without water.

In many areas of the Colorado Plateau, the groundwater that is being used today started out as rainwater before the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 12,000 years ago.

Once groundwater is contaminated it never goes away, at least not within any period of time that matters (in other words, it will stay poisoned for thousands of years). That is the issue with groundwater, it just sits there, nothing decontaminates it. So this isn’t a 100 year problem, this is a “rest of history” problem, or at least until we create an effect filter for whatever poisons we managed to get there in the first place (or drink it all, of course).

When the oil/gas company shows up in your neighborhood to drill Mr. Worstall, let us know then your thoughts on fracking/drilling. I am by no means against drilling for resources, but new drilling technology (horizontal drilling with fracking) has allowed oil companies to drill in places that were not accessible just a few years back. This has inevitably led them to suburbia! Yes, that’s right, oil and gas companies want to literally drill in your backyard and I’m not talking about Wyoming farm land, I’m referring to affluent suburbian neighborhoods! This is such a new and unexplored practice that state and county regulators don’t even have proper regulations in place to address citizen concerns…but yet they go on. My neighborhood in Douglas County Colorado consists of very affluent homeowners that are very concerned with the recent activity of certain oil companies leasing the land around us. They have now requested meetings with our hoa in hopes to secure rights to the entire neighborhood for drilling…in my own freaking backyard! I live on two acres…with over 50 homes in our hoa covenanted neighborhood! This isn’t in the middle of nowhere where possible contamiation would have little impact. This is a freaking neighborhood with 60 familes(wealthy families) who have no incentive to accept the measly financial terms set forth by the oil companies in return for the use of the land underneath and around our homes. But unfortunately, we may not have a choice due to “forced pooling” rules. So, now the debate has taken an interesting turn. Do we continue down this unknown path of possible contamination from fracking…even in crowded neighborhoods? My answer to you Mr. Worstall is no…not in my backyard.

Mr. Worstall is right, as far as he goes, but I think he doesn’t go far enough. His premise is that one landowner can trade his right to be free of noise/ pollution for whatever amount the driller will pay. The problem Worstall does not address is that pollution of an aquifer can affect many users (An aquifer does not end at the trader’s land boundaries) who are not benefiting from the deal, but who are going to suffer the consequences. An even worse problem Worstall does not address is the millions of gallons of potable water required to drill even one well. Oil/gas companies are even now busy buying up water rights in arid states like Wyoming and Colorado which are already short of water. Necessary as energy supplies may be, in the long run no one can drink natural gas or oil.